


Choosing

by OwlPost7



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Exchangelock AU Gift Exchange, Gen, Kidlock, Potterlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1940172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwlPost7/pseuds/OwlPost7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The wand chooses the-”</p>
<p>“The wizard, yes. Obvious.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choosing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thepurplewombat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepurplewombat/gifts).



> This is a gift for the Exchangelock AU Exchange 2014 for tumblr user JaggedRain, who said Potterlock would fill them with glee (and I'm certainly glad they did!)
> 
> My original idea to fill the promp would lead to a much longer fic, but since my writing days were cut down severely, I wouldn't be able to finish that before the deadline. Therefore, I decided to write this - a prequel of sorts to what I have in mind for the longer fic, which will hopefully be published by the end of the month. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> (PS: See the end notes for a detailed description of the main wand woods I chose for the characters, obtained from Pottermore)

“Ah. Here we are. In you go, darling.” Mummy smiled and gestured at the building to their right. All around them, witches and wizards walked around Diagon Alley with an assortment of recent acquisitions ranging from cauldrons to owls to broomsticks to spellbooks, searching for school supplies for the upcoming term. Much like themselves, in fact. Mummy opened the shop’s door and stood by it, indicating with her hand that the dark haired eleven-year-old beside her enter first.

Sherlock hesitated. This was it. They’d purchased his spellbooks and robes and cauldron and potion ingredients, and the last item on the list- the one he’d been looking forward to and at the same time dreading for days since his letter had arrived - was just beyond the door Mummy was holding open for him with an expectant yet patient expression on her face.

Sherlock was knew his unease was illogical, and if there was something Sherlock Holmes would not stand for, it was any sort of irrationality. And so, determined to put an end to his childish qualms, Sherlock had stayed up late into the night with his copy of _Wizards and Wandlore_ , reading up on the choosing process, how wand cores and woods and flexibility and length all came together to form completely unique wands, each different from the rest, with their own quirks and abilities and personalities meant to complement those of their owners. _The wand chooses the wizard_ , the book had said, and therein lay Sherlock’s problem.

In truth, no one had ever really chosen Sherlock. Sure, his parents loved him - they listened to him, and they took care of him, and they were patient with him when he turned the floorboards into flobberworms with his experimental concoctions and accidentally pushed flower vases off shelves with his mind when he was bored. But they hadn’t chosen him. They’d had a baby, and that baby had been him, and they’d adapted remarkably well, all things considered. But Sherlock understood perfectly well that they’d only done so because they’d not had any other choice.

Even Mycroft, who, if nothing else, seemed to treat him with slightly less disdain than that with which he treated other children, had made it very clear to him in his early days that this was only due to Sherlock being marginally less of an idiot than everyone else, and was not the result of sentiment or brotherly compassion.

The fact of the matter was, in his eleven years of life, Sherlock  hadn’t ever met anyone his own age (or otherwise, really) who enjoyed his company, no strings attached. It went both ways, too - he was yet to meet someone whose presence wasn’t tedious, someone who wasn’t an idiot, someone who _observed the world around them_ instead of just riding the planet through space. He much preferred the solitude of his bedroom to the company of other people. And that had all been fine for Sherlock, really it had, but the very day he got his letter from Hogwarts, he knew things were going to have to change, and they were going to change whether he liked it or not.

If he couldn’t get another _person_ to choose him, how in Merlin’s name was he supposed to get a wand to do it?

Sherlock looked at his mother, who nodded at him gently, then shifted his gaze towards the peeling gold letters over the shop’s door. After a moment, he took a steadying breath and entered.

A bell rang as he stepped over the threshold. The shop was dimly lit, dust particles weaving into and out of the sunlight coming in through the front windows.

Sherlock looked around. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of long, narrow boxes were stacked all the way to the ceiling, covering the shop’s walls and filling shelves upon shelves behind a tall black counter. As he studied them, Sherlock felt a sort of tingling sensation all over his skin, as though the ancient and powerful magic held within the boxes was greeting him, as if already the wands were analysing him and evaluating him and sizing him up to see if he’d be a good match.

He heard a rustle and shifted his eyes to the old man who’d emerged from one of the aisles. He had deep wrinkles and silver hair, but his sharp and bright grey eyes were as youthful as they must have been decades ago, indicating anything but the wearings down of old age.

“Mr. Ollivander, how lovely to see you,” Mummy said warmly, turning her sharp grey eyes from where they’d been resting on her son to the man before them.

“Madam Holmes.” Mr. Ollivander appraised her briefly as he walked around the counter towards them. "Ash and dragon heartstring,  fourteen and a half inches, reluctantly giving, if I'm not mistaken?”

“That's correct, yes,” Mummy replied with a quirk of her lips, extracting her wand from within her robes.

"May I?”

“Certainly.”

Mummy handed over the wand. Ollivander held it by his fingertips, raising it so he could see it against the light. After a few moments, the wand began to vibrate violently, as if upset at being in the wrong hands.

“Oh, we don’t like that, now, do we?” Mr. Ollivander chuckled, addressing the wand as he handed it back. The second it exchanged hands, the wand stopped its vibrating and briefly gleamed gold, happy to be back with its rightful owner.

“It’s quite stubborn. Much like myself, I’m afraid, as you so keenly saw when I first came in here. It’s a good match,” said Mummy warmly, her hand making her way to Sherlock’s shoulder as she spoke. “Now we’re hoping you could do the same for my son. He starts his first year in two weeks.” Sherlock internally rolled his eyes at the unmistakable note of pride in his mother’s voice. It was as though the woman thought she was telling the shopkeeper that Sherlock had discovered a thirteenth use of dragon’s blood, become Minister for Magic, and come back home in time for tea.

Ollivander turned to look at Sherlock as if only now noticing his presence. Suddenly, Sherlock had the unnerving sensation of being read, of being stripped down to the very essence of who he was by the sharp eyes darting into his.

“Yes, indeed. Master Holmes, the younger. Pleased to meet you, young man.” Ollivander extended his hand, and Sherlock took it, giving it two short but firm pumps with his own.

“The pleasure is mine, sir,” Sherlock said, his anxiousness making his voice stiff. In other circumstances, he mightn’t have bothered with the pleasantries, but Mummy really could get quite cross when he was rude.

Ollivander’s eyes flickered down to their hands just as they dropped, smirking slightly.

“Well. Let’s get to work, shall we, Master Holmes?”

And off he was, eyes alight with excitement as he disappeared behind the counter and into the aisles with a swish of his robes trailing past him.

Sherlock watched raptly as Mr. Ollivander climbed ladders and shelves, swishing all over the place as he gathered narrow box after narrow box in his arms.

Ollivander kept talking as he gathered the boxes. “Tell me, Madam Holmes, how is your eldest son? Cedar and dragon heartstring, thirteen inches, was it?” As he spoke, he absent-mindedly waved his own wand in Sherlock’s direction. A silver measuring tape floated its way to him from the counter and wrapped itself around him - from shoulder to finger, from finger to wrist to elbow, around his head, across the bridge of his nose, between his eyes.

“Oh, Mycroft’s doing splendidly,” answered Mummy, the note of pride weaving itself back into her voice. “He’s just left Hogwarts last fall. We were visited by a Ministry representative not a fortnight after the end of term offering him a place in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, isn’t that wonderful? It’s all clerical work for now, of course. He’s only just begun, after all. But Myc’s always said he just wants a small position in the Ministry, anyway, nothing terribly important.”

Sherlock snorted at that as the measuring tape finished its work and lay itself atop the counter. Little did Mummy know Mycroft was already pretty much single-handedly running the entire Auror office, having wormed himself into a position of power without actually having to change his position at all.

Mummy gave Sherlock a quick but fearsome glare for his rudeness. He looked at the floor in mock remorse.

Ollivander reappeared behind a tall stack of boxed wands, which he placed on the counter. He regarded Sherlock pensively for a moment. Sherlock swallowed and looked right back.

Ollivander nodded to himself, seemingly having decided something. He gave a quick look at the measuring tape, nodded to himself again, and picked a box from the pile.

He opened it and took from within it a slender, handle-less wand, offering it to Sherlock.

“This is acacia and unicorn hair, ten inches, reasonably supple. Give it a go, see how you like it.”

This was it. Sherlock was aware of the sudden silence that had fallen in the shop. He looked sidelong at his mother, who had settled into a nearby chair and gave him an encouraging nod.

He turned his eyes back to Ollivander. He took the wand, took a deep breath, and waved it.

Nothing happened. He waved it again. The wand remained lifeless and indifferent. Sherlock looked to his mother, alarmed.

“Well that’s obviously not a good fit,” said Ollivander, snatching the wand from Sherlock’s hand and putting it back in its box. “Not to worry, not to worry. I only keep a small stock of acacias anyway, they’re difficult to please. Now try this.” He took a wand from another box, a lighter wood with an intricately decorated handle.

“Silver lime and phoenix feather. Eleven and three-quarter inches. Give it a wave.”

Sherlock didn’t get the chance to give it a wave. The second it came into contact with his hand, the wand scorched his skin, forcing him to drop it with a yelp.

“No, no, certainly not. Hm.” Ollivander scanned his selection of narrow boxes for a moment before settling upon the next subject.

“Sycamore and unicorn hair, twelve and a quarter inches, slightly yielding, see how that works.”

When Sherlock clasped his hand around it, he wand emitted a soft, pearly smoke. He raised it closer to his face, inspecting it. It smelt of freshly baked cookies.

Ollivander came closer, peeking curiously. “Huh. A most unusual reaction,” he said pensively. “Not a definitive rejection, certainly, but we can probably do better. We’ll set that one aside for now,” he added as he took it from Sherlock and offered him another.

And on it went. Ollivander put wand after wand in his hand, aspen and elder and black walnut and ebony; long wands and short wands and unremarkably average wands; simple and understated, and flamboyant and ostentatious, and each reacting differently to Sherlock, or, in more than one case, not reacting at all. One shot straight out of his hand the second he clasped his hand around it. Another turned limp as a noode. One wand laughed like it had just had a Tickling Charm placed upon it, and when Ollivander put a dark, elegant wand in his hand, it started playing _Dance Like a Hippogriff_ until he put it back in its box. With each failed attempt, Sherlock felt an increasing pressure on his chest.

“It’s hopeless,” he said to Mummy once Mr. Ollivander had gone behind the shelves once more in the search of the next batch of wands for him to test, nearly an hour after having started. “We should just...” He sighed. He knew this wasn’t going to work, he knew no wand would choose him, and he’d been stupid, _stupid_ , to allow himself, even for a second, to believe any differently.“We should just go home and forget this whole thing.”

“Sherlock.” The boy was facing away from his mother, decidedly _not_  feeling his eyes sting and his heart sink. He didn’t turn at the mention of his name.

“Sherlock Holmes, look at me this instant.”

He turned around slowly, keeping his eyes fixed stubbornly on the ground. He felt rather than saw his mother get up from her chair and walk towards him. She knelt down in front of him and put her hand under his chin, coaxing him to lift his face a bit and look at her.

Whenever Sherlock misbehaved at home - whenever his experiments exploded and singed his eyebrows, or whenever Mycroft woke up with pink hair the day after a particularly vicious row with Sherlock - Mummy would give him a steely glare with those icy blue eyes, so very like his own, and he would feel a chill run down his spine at the underlying fierceness those eyes revealed. But now, as his mother looked into his eyes and he reluctantly looked back, he only saw a warmth and a kindness and an understanding, and a completely different kind of fierceness that had nothing to do with being cross.

Her hand moved from his chin to his cheek. “Sherlock.” There was a hard edge to her voice, even though it was soft and kind. “The only reason you haven’t found your wand yet is because you are brilliant. You are clever, and perceptive, and independent, and remarkable, and _brilliant_ , and if you think, even for a second, that I’ll ever have you believe otherwise, you will find yourself to be sorely mistaken, young man. Understood?”

Sherlock’s eyes went over his mother’s face, taking in the clarity in her eyes and the certainty in her expression. After a few seconds, he was forced to accept that she betrayed none of the signs of duplicity - she was telling the truth, or at least the version of it she believed.

“Hm?” she prompted again.

He nodded, the corner of his lips quirking up infinitesimally.

Just then, Mr. Ollivander came back carrying a teetering pile of wands. Mummy returned to her seat in the corner of the shop. Sherlock took a deep breath and braced himself once more.

Ollivander lay the boxes out on the counter and was now looking at them thoughtfully, selecting the next wand to try.  “Alright, let’s see what we have here. Let’s give this one a tr-”

_ Thump. _

The three of them paused, looking hesitantly around the room with almost identical expressions of bemusement on their faces.

_ Thump. _

Ollivander approached the pile of boxes on the counter.

_Thump. Thump thump._

The shopkeeper simply looked at the boxes. Slowly his face gave way to awe and confusion and amazement as he identified the origin of the soft beating.

“Master Holmes... I rather hope I’m not speaking too soon, but...” He lifted his increasingly excited gaze to meet Sherlock’s, whose heart was pitter-pattering . “I...” Ollivander chuckled softly. “I think I’ve found your wand.”

Ollivander moved the boxes at the top of the pile until he found the one he was looking for. He held it up, and it the origin of the mysterious noise became evident. The box jolted with each new _thump_ , growing louder and louder until it was positively rattling in Ollivander’s hand.

“What’s happening?” Mummy asked with a note of trepidation in her voice.

“I’ve read of this phenomenon, but I’d never experienced it first hand in my own shop,” Ollivander said, sounding like his mind was miles away as he looked at the violently shaking narrow box. “It has been observed that, on occasion, an unclaimed wand that has become aware of the proximity of its rightful master will attempt to bind itself to them, even if the witch or wizard in question has not yet held it. I believe, Madam Holmes, that that is what we’re witnessing.”

The wizard lifted his eyes to Sherlock’s. “This is pine and phoenix feather, twelve and three-quarter inches. Unyielding. Master Holmes... If you will.”

Sherlock tried to stomp down the emotions swelling inside him - an uncomfortable mix of dread and excitement and apprehension and vulnerability and _oh god what if this is it_ as he approached Ollivander and opened the box in his hands.

Immediately, the wand zoomed into his palm, as if there were an intrinsic, magnetic pull between handle and hand. The very instant Sherlock’s fingers clasped around the handsome wand, he felt a warmth emanate from his chest and radiate slowly but surely outwards into the rest of his body, as though the very blood within his veins had been replaced by warm honey. Red and gold sparks shot from the tip of the wand and swirled around him, and he realized with a start that his entire body was glowing, and Sherlock had the sudden thought that if music was a feeling it would be this. He looked at his mother and found her teary-eyed and smiling radiantly at him. Sherlock’s face split into a grin, and he laughed in spite of himself. He’d been chosen.

He’d been _chosen._

Sherlock could faintly hear Ollivander’s ecstatic proclamations over his own elation and relief.

“Oh, this is fantastic! Oh, marvelous, I’ve only seen a reaction such as this a handful of times, Master Holmes! Well done, very well done!”

As Mummy thanked Ollivander effusively and extracted seven gold Galleons from within her robes to pay for the wand, the sparks died down and the glow that surrounded Sherlock’s body simmered to a halt. However, the relief and the buoyant energy the wand had given Sherlock adamantly refused to leave him.

As he and Mummy left the shop and walked down Diagon Alley, Sherlock looked at his - _his_ \- new wand, and he _knew_ that even if the neighbourhood children never got around to liking him, even if he never got the hang of good manners and even if he made no friends at Hogwarts, he’d never have to be alone again.

**Author's Note:**

> From Pottermore:
> 
> Ash: 'The ash wand cleaves to its one true master and ought not be passed on or gifted from the original owner, because it will lose power and skill. (...) Those witches and wizards best suited to ash wands are not, in my experience, lightly swayed from their beliefs or purposes. However, the brash or over-confident witch or wizard, who often insists on trying wands of this prestigious wood, will be disappointed by its effects. The ideal owner may be stubborn, and will certainly be courageous, but never crass or arrogant.'
> 
> Cedar: 'Whenever I meet one who carries a cedar wand, I find strength of character and unusual loyalty. My father, Gervaise Ollivander, used always to say, 'you will never fool the cedar carrier,' and I agree: the cedar wand finds its perfect home where there is perspicacity and perception. I would go further than my father, however, in saying that I have never yet met the owner of a cedar wand whom I would care to cross, especially if harm is done to those of whom they are fond. The witch or wizard who is well-matched with cedar carries the potential to be a frightening adversary, which often comes as a shock to those who have thoughtlessly challenged them.'
> 
> Pine: 'The straight-grained pine wand always chooses an independent, individual master who may be perceived as a loner, intriguing and mysterious. Pine wands enjoy being used creatively, and unlike some others, will adapt unprotestingly to new methods and spells. Many wandmakers insist that pine wands are able to detect, and perform best for, owners who are destined for long lives, and I can confirm this in as much as I have never personally known the master of a pine wand to die young. The pine wand is one of those that is most sensitive to non-verbal magic.'

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Study in Veritaserum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071341) by [HarrisonHolmes2014](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarrisonHolmes2014/pseuds/HarrisonHolmes2014)




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